VoIP telephone systems are a great solution for most businesses. The walls-free approach allows for more flexibility than ever before. As with more technology, it relies on the right infrastructure to work smoothly. While VoIP has several different elements that are important, one of the most overlooked is network latency.

A mere 150 milliseconds of latency and you’ll start to experience issues in the quality of your calls.

Here’s how that happens: VoIP telephone systems are connected to the network and communicate via data packets. If those packets of information are delayed, voice quality is negatively impacted. Attached is a document that we provide to prospects and customers to assist in determining if the business’ network is sufficient for a VoIP telephone system.

Latency isn’t the only culprit. Issues from information packet loss, or the uneven arrival of data packets can degrade the quality of calls, creating frustration and confusion for users and customers. Information gets missed, calls get dropped, and calls come through broken and choppy.

The cultural expectation of technology is that it is ultra-fast and of the highest quality. Customers get annoyed when they have to repeat themselves or can’t understand what someone in your company is telling them. When you have latency in your phone systems, your customers perceive you as fly-by-night, technologically behind, or too bureaucratic to keep up and increasingly too difficult to do business with. These are not good looks for the 21st century.

Chances are, your customers aren’t having just one poor phone experience but several.

The latency is caused by the increasing amount of data that is being shared across the global network. Networks today are set up to transfer data over hundreds of miles, traveling at the speed of light. Not all the components throughout this journey can process the full breadth of what they’re forced to handle. This creates miniature bottlenecks as your information works to get where it needs to go.

To add to this challenge, data processing is more of a two-way street than it’s ever been. Because of the cloud, VoIP phones, and more devices processing more data than ever before, there is a hefty amount of uploading and downloading. The sheer volume is staggering, and with people globally increasing the number of devices, consuming more content, and digitalizing everything from their security systems to their washing machines, the demand on our networks is only expected to continue growing at a staggering rate.

As the masses clamor for broadband space, your company has to look at options to get closer to the end points of the network streams, so that data has less space to travel through.

In short, the most beneficial way to reduce this network latency is to use a content distribution network (CDN), which reduces latency by strategically using network edge points to reduce the distance your information packets have to travel, and accelerating delivery of those information packets.

CDNs are taking the digital world by storm, improving web performance and reducing the time that it takes for rich media to reach devices. Companies using VoIP and cloud-connected communications like browser-based softphones and video calls are using CDNs to ensure smoother, richer communications.

With an increasing demand on the global network, companies who want to ensure they carve out space for their communications may find that a CDN is the best tool for the job. One thing is certain: waiting out latency issues will only beget more garbled, unclear and broken communications and frustrated customers.